Growing Old Disgracefully

Doesn't look like a good year ahead...

2012-02-12T00:01:00.001+08:00

I reached a new low today. After three weeks of illness and depression eating, I hit 200 lbs tonight, even after training at the gym and two hours of tennis. There are days like this when I wish I could just give up, let go and just stop fighting my body and get as fat and unhealthy as I can be. But I can’t. I can’t stop fighting any more.

Planning for 2012...

2012-01-01T22:41:00.001+08:00

2012 is here and I'm trying to decide what my goals should be for this year. I managed to get some of the things done that I'd planned for last year and I had to leave other things undone. So this isn't going to be a list of New Year's resolutions but a list of the things I want to get done this year, and hopefully, some of my thoughts on why I want to do them.

1. I really must get my children's fantasy trilogy finished because one way or another, I'm going to submit at least the first book to publishers and agents before June. I don't think I have much time left to waste, I am afraid.

2. I want to play at least two Seniors tennis competitions - and hopefully - WIN!!!

3. I want to start selling my pottery professionally at local craft shops and markets.

4. I want to reach my target weight range of 180-185 lbs before I start playing tennis tournaments in April.

5. I have got to learn to keep things simple, not be too ambitious, set fewer but more important targets and focus on achieving them

Looking back on 2011...

2011-12-29T21:09:00.001+08:00

So as I bid goodbye to another year, I can't help but look back on all I've done and everything that's happened during the last 365 days. There were good days and there were times when I felt like something about me needed serious kicking. I think it would be good for me to list what I think were the major events on my blog so that if I'm still around at the end os 2012, I can look back here and decide if this year was actually as good or bad as I thought. Here goes -

1).My pottery skills improved sufficiently that the teachers at the ceramics class managed to sell not one but TWO medium-sized pieces of mine for rather more than I had thought possible.

2).I learned to try hitting the ball away from my opponent on purpose, instead of by accident when I was simply going for a killer shot. But then, I still haven't learned to resist temptation and avoid throwing away points by going for killer shots at utterly inappropriate times.

3).I was ill or injured so often that my weight stuck between 192-196 lbs most of the time, and I lost a lot of lean muscle because I had to cut down on gym time and tennis training.

4).I finished ghost writing the first of the Singapore food books and submitted it before Christmas - about 20 days ahead of schedule.

And that was that for 2011, I guess. I can't help feeling that I could - and should - have done much more, so I'll really have to put on my thinking cap and see what I need to do in the year ahead.

I never seem to learn my lesson...

2011-12-23T22:10:00.001+08:00

I seem to be playing much better now than before but I never seem to learn my lesson about eating when my body needs it - instead of stuffing my face when I think I need a little pick me up to feel better.

Same thing jappened again today. I ate before going for pottery class and threw a proper vase with a 6-inch neck just to prove to myself that I have not only learned the skill but that I can do it better than before. And then, I had a light lunch because I was going to play tennis later...guess what happened...my blood sugar fell, my timing went west and my game fell to pieces.

It isn't really as much of a dilemma as it seems. Really, it isn't just a question of do I eat enough to play properly - and pile on the pounds - or do I try to diet so that I can lose the excess fat I'm carrying. It's taken me a long time to realise that the best solution is to eat when my body needs it, and that means eating an extra small meal just before I start playing so that my blood sugar doesn't plummet. It doesn't mean putting in a lot of food at one sitting, just to keep my blood sugar up all the time I am playing.

And yet, knowing that, I still went ahead and failed to take a small extra snack to the court with me. Sometimes, I can soooo darned stupid!

Some lessons are harder to learn than others.

2011-12-02T22:34:00.001+08:00

I screwed up at the tennis court again. And all because I simply find it impossible to resist banging as many balls as I can as hard as I can. Hhhmmm...that didn't come out sounding quite right. What I meant was that I just cannot try to win every point by creaming every ball for a winner. Not even Roger Federer does that - BUT - when my blood sugar runs a little low and I stop thinking, then my natural reaction is to try and murder everything that I can get my racquet on. And of course, what actually happens is that I end up making eight mistakes for every winner I manage to get into the court.

That's another thing. My mind just freezes into a blank when my sugar starts to run low and I'll often stare at the ball as it comes over the net until it hits me in the face. Someone told me I should think of purposely practise hitting against the wall when my blood sugar was extra low so that I'll start developing subconscious or instinctive reactions that have nothing to do with thinking. That's an interesting thought and I must cogitate on it some more.

Good news and bad news as usual...

2011-11-12T22:41:00.000+08:00

I got a shock today. And it was one of those rare occasions when it was good news that left me tongue tied. Not often that happens. What happened was that as we were submitting our pottery stuff for the festival next weekend, we were asked to price our stuff. Well, I have very little idea how much my work is worth since I still consider myself a student at best, so I just took a wild guess and tagged all the smaller pieces at $20-$30 and $50 for the larger ones. And was told by the Japanese teachers at the class that I was crazy to do that. They said my stuff was worth much more and marked up everything a 100% - I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it!

It's nice to think that my teachers who are ceramic artists on their own country, think my work is worth that much! Now, if only I could have had good news about my tennis as well...*sigh* I can work my opponent side to side and set up the point but when it comes to finishing it, I end up hitting into the net or send the ball over the baseline. I only managed to win 4 points out of 17 - and none of those four points were on my forehand side. I really need to learn to end points more effectively AND find a better way to play my forehands more effectively.

My blue pot series...

2011-11-04T22:39:00.000+08:00

I am tempted to simply write about the series of blue pots (some with covers like in the picture) and not mention that even after three weeks of training and occasionally trying not to eat even when I thought my blood sugar was going to plummet to the floor and make me black out. But I won't. I've lost four pounds since my latest make-over began last month and I think I deserve a consolatory pat on the back, too. I know it doesn't really show in my picture here, but it's gone and I hope to God it never comes back on to my waiste and hips again.

On the pottery front, I've managed to complete glazing almost all the required pots for the pottery festival on the 18th, with many good enough to actually sell, I hope. I'm still a little too modest to speculate about my chances of selling all my pots, but I can still hope and keep my fingers crossed, can't I? I did a series of small candy containers in dark blue and black to go with some of the brown and green larger pieces. What a pity my handpainted chrysanthemum bottle vase still hasn't been fired yet. I'll post the pictures when they're finished.

Strange as it might seem...

2011-10-23T23:05:00.001+08:00

My sister says I look like a raccoon because of my wonderfully banded silver and black hair. Most of my acquaintances ask why I don't dye it black - or at least dark brown. And everybody tells me I'd look much younger if I did. Well, I did dye my hair when I was in my forties and working in a hotel - which was when I discovered that my hair doesn't take dye too well. After three weeks or so the dye starts washing out on the left side of my head and then it looks like a very large bird pooped on me. Besides, I DON'T want to look younger.

In this day and age when everybody's so afraid not to look like a teenager, I'm very proud of my grey hair. It's one of the few things that mark me as a man of the Lim family (we all go grey young). And that's important to me because in every other way, I did NOT inherit a single other thing that would connect me to my Lim forebears - not the slightest bit of athletic ability, nor their wonderful body and hand-eye coordination, impeccable sport and dancing timing or physical stamina.

Nor for that matter did I get much from my mother's side of the family, the grand Penang Khoos. I didn't get their fantastic mathematical abilities (my brother got it all), their quick thinking and ability to make split second decisions correctly, or their business acumen.

The one thing I believe I got, and from both sides of the family, which I got in spades,was creativity. As a kid, there weren't many handicrafts I couldn't pick up easily, from crotchet to embroidery. As an adult, I love painting, sculpture, writing, drawing, music, pottery and a lot of other creative pursuits. A palmist once told me it showed in my fingers. Maybe that's why I've always been a changeling of sorts.

You win some, you lose some...

2011-10-14T00:07:00.001+08:00

Twelve days of hard tennis raining and practise and all I manage to lose is one miserable pound. But! The good thing is that I've managed to develop a reliable service that allows me to serve confidently, without fear of constant double faults, for the frst time in forty years...yes, THAT's how long I've been playing tennis with an unreliable service. I guess there's something to be said for perseverance, after all. I do wonder, though, if some of the weight I've put on over the last few weeks isn't a bit of muscle. None of my pants are tight, and I was quite surprised at how big my arms looked in my pictures, so I guess I shouldn't be too ashamed to post a new picture of myself here.

The other thing that I did good the last two weeks or so, was paint a nice pot. It's a different technique from the one I usually use, without black outlines and using a brush dipped in two colours, but it doesn't look too shabby. The proof of the pudding is in the eating however, and until it comes out of the glazing kiln, I really shouldn't be too pleased with myself, yet.

Feeling a leeetle better...

2011-10-09T10:09:00.000+08:00

I lost just another pound of fat this week, but for the first time in months, I'm starting to feel as if some of the hard work is starting to pay off at last. I'm still too ashamed of the way I look to post another picture of myself but I don't feel like I'm trying to push a tractor uphill with the brakes on, any more. So I'm just going to post another potty picture. This is another of the pieces I'm submitting for the pottery arts festival next month. It's a sort of wide-mouthed mushroom-shaped vase or condiment bowl. I like doing multi-functional pieces that look nice - part of my personal aesthetics and philosophy, I guess. Just because something's useful doesn't mean it's got to look like it came out of a factory reject heap.

The good news, however, is that I was able to take control of some of my life, and then, there's the fact that after nearly forty years of practice, my tennis service is starting to come together. I'm still not a power server or player, but I'm getting to the point where I'm able to put the ball near the corner I'm aiming at about 80 percent of the time with some pace on it.

And then there's the fact that I took a long hard look at what I could do really well - better than the rest of my strokes anyway - and started to build a competitive game around my best assets. Of course, I've had to give up some of the stuff I really hoped to be able to produce, like booming forehands for example, but those were low percentage shots and produced more errors than winners anyway. Life's like that when you hit a certain number of years, I guess. It's not what you think you can do that's going to contribute to the quality of life but doing the best with what you can and getting the most out of it.

The Long Road Back...

2011-10-01T23:55:00.002+08:00

Two weeks and all I managed to drop was 1 lb of fat. My own fault, I guess, as I have been busy travelling on top of pulling a shoulder muscle so that I couldn't go to the gym. I'm too ashamed to post any picture of myself. Instead, the only picture I'm going to post today is that of one of my Penang Pottery Arts Festival submissions. This is an earthenware bottle, about 5 inches high or so and more or less the same in width.

It's my first attempt to do a sort of Middle Eastern graphic on it. I could have done better if I'd planned the arabesques first, before painting in the flowers, I guess. So, like everything else in my life, I know better now.

I was too ashamed...

2011-09-23T21:47:00.000+08:00

I took a quick holiday in Pattaya last weekend but I've put on so much weight that I was too ashamed of the way I looked to take any pictures. Six weeks without weight-training, cutting down on tennis because I'd strained my elbow, and a lot of depression eating in between. Of course, not having a single snapshot of my first ever visit to Pattaya, doesn't help the depression one bit. I was even too ashamed to go swimming at Dongtan beach, much as I wanted to.

But I don't intend to go back to getting - and staying - fat forever. I've been fighting depression since I was eighteen years old and I'll be damned if I give in to it for too long. So here's my latest picture, flab, fat and all - because it represents a new starting point for me. I do NOT intend to look like this the next time I go on holiday!

2011-09-10T20:13:00.000+08:00

The last few weeks, I've been trying my best to play tennis as best I can without making my elbow worse. I've been staying away from the gym, too, and I end up with a mysterious muscle injury on my non-playing shoulder. On top of that, I don't seem to be improving in any way at the court. All my timing's off and my blood sugar yo-yos if I take just 300gm less of carbohydrates before I go to train. And oh yeah, I forgot to mention I've also put on more than 10 pounds of fat. Isn't life wonderful?

I think it's time for a holiday. I think I just need to get away from familiar surroundings and see new stuff, eat different kiinds of food, wander new lands on my own for a bit and come back refreshed and ready to go again.

1 step forward 2 steps back...again

2011-09-06T19:09:00.001+08:00

So here we go again...after all that work, and I get injured and sick and I'm back where I started trying to lose enough weight to look good in my tiny Speedos when I'm on holiday. All my efforts to get fit seem to be an unending one step forward - two steps back kind of thing. This picture was taken a few months back...and then I had the tennis elbow injury (which wasn't from playing tennis!)

And now, I have a mysterious left upper pectoral/shoulder injury which came from God-knows-where. It was so bad, the doctor told me the muscle was swollen. No wonder it hurt like hell!

2011-08-31T03:54:00.001+08:00

It's been hard the last two weeks, with an elbow injury that's forced me to cut weight-training and slow down tennis training, and then to catch a cold that's affected my timing so badly that it feels like I'm floating on court. And then, there's the fact that no matter what I do, I just can't seem to overcome the bad habits and other physical limitations, let alone the mental stuff, that makes me such a lousy player on court. I admit it. There have been times the last fortnight or so, when I've felt like simply giving up tennis and just sticking to weight-training.

But then, I've always believed that whatever I can see myself doing in my mind, I can achieve no matter what the odds. And the fact that I refuse to give my family members the satisfaction of being right when they call me cannon fodder on the court.

Time for another MAJOR make-over

2011-07-31T11:01:00.002+08:00

Recent events in my life have made me pause and reconsider how I want to see myself - I couldn't care less how others see me because I can't change their preconceptions and world views. So I won't be posting any more photos of myself here until I am happy with how I look.

Happy accidents

2011-07-14T20:36:00.010+08:00

Isn't it curious that so many things in life are often the result of happy accidents? I became a writer because 17 years ago, a ghost decided to futz up the tape recorder my client was using, for example. And the same can be said for so many of my photos here. I confess to having taken as many as thirty or forty sometimes,just to get a few shots good enough to post on my profiles or blogs. And by good enough, I mean those which do not make me look quite as fat - or too much better - than I really am. It's true the camera adds ten pounds to your picture but I know the right angle can make me look ten pounds slimmer, too.

I think such happy accidents, small as they might be, help me make it through tough times. I admit I'm not the most lovable person around because I refuse to compromise so many of the things I believe in (thank goodness I've learnt to be much less vocal about it nowadays), and for various other reasons, I've always had to fight my biggest battles without the kind of emotional support system other regular folk can count on.

I could never be a chef!

2011-07-14T00:31:00.001+08:00

For starters, I am old-fashioned and proud of it. Which doesn't make me the most popular person around in this day and age but I couldn't care less. I could never believe that wearing clothes and accessories that match each other or my friends' choices is all that important - or that I should feel honoured if someone takes me to a restaurant where two bites of steamed fish cost more than I'd pay for bag of rice. Sorry but I'd suspect that someone's waiting to jump out with a camera and yell, "Punked!" if that happened.

Maybe that's why I enjoy the feel of wet earth between my fingers when I do pottery. Aesthetically, I love the simplicity of a perfectly executed form instead of an elaborately ornamented one, and when a simple, well-made pot comes out of the kiln with the glaze behaving properly and doing what it's supposed to, I can't begin to describe the thrill of having created something beautiful out of mud. This little blue pot sums up exactly how I feel and what I strive to make as an artist and artisan (Yes, I know. In this day and age, when anybody who can scratch two lines in the sand is an acclaimed artist, very few people appreciate the difference.)

Oh, and about the title of this post? Well, do you know the difference between a chef and a cook?

The former picks up a beautiful three-foot long fish, adds the freshest and most expensive ingredients in the pantry and produces a symphony of taste for a diner. The cook quietly feeds ten people with what the chef throws away. That's why I would be as insulted to be called a chef as I would if anybody were foolish enough to say that I was a gentleman.

2011-07-10T01:01:00.000+08:00

I haven't been posting much in June because I've been busy. But July's here now and I just had my 2011 blood test done. All fairly good, with my cholesterol down and my blood sugar up to normal. I guess I should be thankful for things like that whenever other things don't go to plan.

I haven't been able to play tennis properly for about three weeks now, with the club tournament going on. I wanted to enter this year but decided not to after tearing an inner thigh muscle in April, so I'll have to wait till next year. I have managed to go to the gym or work out at home mostly, however, so I haven't been all that lazy, either. Except that I'll really have to get off my derriere and start writing seriously again...there, I have been utterly lethargic!

On the plus side again, after fifty attempts, I've finally learned the pottery technique for making a tall, narrow neck on my pots. Of course, me being me, I sort of got carried away (as the picture shows) and focused so much on making the neck taller and narrower that I lost all sense of proportion and ended up with a very odd looking vase. Luckily the following two vases I made after this one had much more aesthetic proportions.

I dont know why but this one makes me think of a pregnant woman...

I have to keep reminding myself...

2011-06-05T13:57:00.000+08:00

I always try to be a nice guy and not let things get to me too much but I never realised I had so much anger in me or how much it affected the way I viewed things. Perhaps it's because of all the times when I know how to do things - like playing a good forehand volley - and then simply not being able to do it because I can't move well enough or coordinate my body or something equally stupid like that.

I guess I'll just have to keep reminding myself to either try harder or simply forget it when I screw up once and then find a way not to do it again.

2011-05-31T14:15:00.000+08:00

I confess I'm an el cheapo tourist because I go on a holiday, stay in cheap hotels, eat the local hawker food and enjoy the culture and the sights of whichever place I happen to darken with my presence, without having to worry about staying in a classy hotel or eating only restaurant food - or like some people I could mention, nothing but Nyonya food, never mind that the locals wouldn't even know what a Nyonya was! And then there are those who proudly boast about the expensive hotels they stayed at on their cheap package holidays. They usually need fifty pictures of one crumbling wall to remind themselves that they didn't just see the insides of expensive hotel rooms but call themselves seasoned travellers who've seen the world.

I really don't know why there's such a stigma against being an el cheapo tourist anyway. Do people really think that it's any worse than visiting a country and then trying to get the best bargain by denying some poor undernourished vendor with ten kids, a sick buffalo and a dying grandmother, a little more profit? I realize that there's a difference between paying a slightly higher price than being ripped off, but I don't believe I'd be happy knowing I paid only ten cents extra for a pair of slippers in say Thailand, but which probably cost ten dollars more in my own country.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, if there are medical tourists who visit a country specifically to enjoy the better (and occasionally cheaper) medical facilities, and 'green' tourists who talk about seeing the trees and bushes and bugs and worms (while leaving empty drink cans and plastic food wrappers all over the place), what's wrong with being a cheap tourist? I have never called myself a 'traveller' and I was never enough of a hypocrite to call a spade an excavational implement, anyway.

Dang, I told myself I wasn't going to rant and rave but I did anyway and forgot the original point of this post, which is that people seem to find the oddest things about which to attach all kinds of stigmas but take the most horrible things for granted and regard them as being socially acceptable...like taking advantage of others to save themselves a few minutes extra work or an extra cent. Whenever I see things like that I'm always glad no soothsayer of any stripe has ever predicted a long life for me.

And before I forget, I am NOT a fan of restaurant food, which is what I usually classify as 'fussy food' - a lot of fancy decorating and unnecessary work to make one measly bite look like three mouthfuls. That isn't being high class to me. It's the worst kind of ostentation carried to the extreme.

Why do I do this?

2011-05-27T23:53:00.000+08:00

Today seems like a good day to remind myself why I keep fighting my body every day and writing a blog that most likely few people will ever bother to read. It hasn't been easy but I have always believed that whatever my mind can see, I can achieve and I have never believed that I am going to go to my grave looking like a pig...in fact, for many years, that was the only thing keeping me from doing something truly drastic. And where tennis is concerned, I spent so many years truly believing that I could never play the game with any competence, until I learned that it, too, was all in the head.

Playing it by ear...

2011-05-07T23:07:00.003+08:00

I'm a bit of an anal-retentive when it comes to plans and schedules. I hate having my carefully laid plans and even more meticulously laid out schedules interrupted by the unexpected - one reason I seldom if ever accept invitations that don't give me at least three days lead time. I've been called un-spontaneous and a cranky old fart. I can live with that because as far as I am concerned, it is worse being so selfish as to expect other people to simply drop everything and rush to entertain "spontaneous" people.

Maybe that's just more of my old-fashioned side showing its horns again but I do not expect others to dance to my tune. I certainly don't intend to live up to anybody else's expectations of me. It's hard enough trying to live up to my own.

Grumble, grumble...

2011-05-04T22:25:00.001+08:00

Much as I might grumble about having poor stamina on the tennis court and feeling as if I'm going to drop dead on the court after playing a few sets, I've go to admit I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't really feel satisfied at the end of the day if I haven't played as hard and as much as I can, and come home feeling like I'm ready to fall into bed and just go to sleep immediately. I guess training an hour against the wall before I even start playing a single set might have something to do with it.

Same for when I go to the gym. I don't really feel as if I've exercised unless I've lifted weights and done ab exercises until my muscles feel like lead. Of course, whether I play tennis or work out with weights, I need at least a full day to recover nowadays. I guess that's just age catching up, but I'm having fun. And as long as I'm worrying more about how good I'm going to look and less about how much I weigh, I really shouldn't grumble too much when I miss a few forehands or serve one or two more double faults.

2011-05-01T23:39:00.000+08:00

There were very few people at the court yesterday, so I am happy to report, I indulged in an orgy of tennis! I played 3 sets of singles and lost all of them.

What did I expect? I haven't played much since I injured my thigh muscle around Chinese New Year, and today I barely have the energy to do much. The good thing is that my thigh didn't hurt at all, though all that stop-start driving in the traffic jam going home gave me cramps.

The disappointing thing was that at various times, my legs just didn't have the strength to get me to the ball. That was a surprise. I've never had that problem before, not even when I was young and terribly fat! I guess I'm going to have to start doing leg strengthening exercises and more cardio work, though.

With my teeth gritted...

2011-04-29T20:20:00.001+08:00

It sometimes seems like I live much of my life with my teeth gritted against everything I meet but that's not the case, of course. I complain a lot about my constant difficulties with physical things but I've much more to be thankful for.

I hope it doesn't make me seem smug when I think of some of the things for which I thank all my gods everyday - like my facility with language, which allows me not only to write but to read the things which people don't realise they're giving away by their choice of words; the fact that I can pick up artistic pursuits like drawing, painting, pottery and even embroidery fairly easily compared with most other people.

Getting my life back again

2011-04-21T20:37:00.002+08:00

I've finally got all the hectic travelling out of the way for the moment and now I have about 20 odd days to start getting my life back again. I want to look much, much better before I go on holiday one of these days. I admit it. I'm terribly vain. So what I've got to do is to squeeze in as much weight-training and tennis as I can get and then after another couple of days when my routine gets disrupted again, I can focus seriously on the tennis and the weight-training before I go and strut my stuff at the beaches in either Thailand or Bali...heheheh!

But the one thing I am not going to fuss and worry about so much any more, is how much I weigh as long as I stay below 200 lbs. I realise that trying to get back to my old weight of 170 lbs is not helping me to stay fit and healthy. My blood sugar highs and lows are accentuated when I try to cut down too much on my food. Better to focus on looking good and staying healthy so that I can play tennis happily - and not black out every time I have to chase the ball too many times.

Changing priorities

2011-04-03T21:35:00.001+08:00

I thought I'd post something on April 1st but I wanted to do some thinking first because the last couple of months of inactivity have made me re-think some of my priorities and I've had to come to terms with certain things about myself.

Firstly, I'm never going to be as slim as I've always wanted to be, no matter how much I try to cut down on what I eat or how careful I am about it. There're just too many other physical factors against my achieving that. But that doesn't mean I can't still look much better than I do now.

And then, there's the fact that I'll never be as talented as a sportsman as I'd like to be, no matter how much I train or what I sacrifice. So I'll just have to settle for being the best I can be by using the best I have got in the best way I can.

One thing I realised but can't quite explain or understand fully is that for all my lack of hand-eye co-ordination and blood sugar difficulties which affect my ability to do well in sports and games, I don't seem to have any difficulty handling a brush or a pencil or a pen to draw and paint. At first, I thought it was because whatever I could see in my head I could do with my hands, but then that isn't quite true.

When I paint on paper or cloth or apply glaze to my pottery using Chinese watercolour techniques, I don't always see what I want to draw fully in my head. It isn't like there's a complete picture in my mind's eye but the final drawing or painting only appears when I have applied the last brush stroke. And I don't have any difficulty putting down the fine strokes with a steady hand and an accurate eye.

That's about the best way I can explain it though I am still not completely satisfied that I've said it the best - and most comprehensible - way I can. Maybe I've got to make a video and post it to show what I mean. That might be a good idea and something to think about for later, when I am more sure of my skills.

Bitten by the Rabbit...again!

2011-03-26T23:30:00.000+08:00

The last few weeks since the Year of the Rabbit began have been terrible for me. I've been sick, injured my right inner muscle (twice!), my left outer thigh muscle, my knees have played up in spite of the fact that I haven't been exercising or putting any kind of strain on it, and it's been just one thing after another. My pottery hasn't been going exactly to plan either. The new clay at the class has less grog so it's softer - which makes it easier on my hands - but that also means I've had to re-learn how the clay should feel all over again, how much or how little water I can use, how thin I can go and a lot of other things so that my pots don't collapse on the wheel.

But I'm trying to stay positive. Where the pottery is concerned, I'm chalking it all up to experience and refining my throwing technique so that I can work better when I go back to working porcelain. In addition, it means I have a few more pieces I don't mind losing if my experiments with different kinds of glaze-on-glaze technique don't work out. basically, I'm trying to find a good combination of glazes so that I can do Chinese brush paintings with brush and glaze on my ceramic pieces.

As for the exercise, I'm trying to think of it as a chance to take stock of what I've been doing wrong and start putting things right. It's a chance for me to think carefully about what and how I need to do things so that when I go back to the tennis court, I can play properly and not have to worry about techniques and just focus on placing the ball strategically so that I can go in and finish the point. Even the way I have been working out with weights has had to be re-vamped so that I can build muscle without putting on too much additional weight.

On my feet again

2011-03-02T22:39:00.000+08:00

I went to the tennis court and managed to last exactly 23 minutes non-stop against the wall before I started gasping again. I really hadn't expected the second bput of flu with the sinus infection to affect me that badly or this long. Admittedly, it was at 3pm in the afernoon so I guess I shouldn't complain as I did manage to try out the modified racquet at the same time and went through serves, volleys and drives. I just wish I could get better more quickly but I've got to start somewhere. I absolutely hate this whole back to Square One and start all over again whenever it comes to physical fitness...this is probably the seventh or eighth time in my life I'm starting over again. Maybe before I try going back to the court to play seriously, I should start by going jogging at the beach to augment the light weight workouts.

Got to eat more Rabbit!

2011-02-26T18:00:00.001+08:00

The Rabbit year's barely begun and it's already bitten me in the derriere. Bad enough to get one type of flu from a client, I had to get a second and worse type from a relative, and now, I've got a terrible case of sinusitis that's made it impossible for me to exercise. On top of that, of course, all the antibiotics and other medications has made me a bit blimpy. Luckily I managed to get a couple of nice photos before I started looking really bad! Sigh* ... guess it's back to Square One again with the weights and tennis training. And I was so hoping to be able to lose 15 lbs and play better, too. Guess I'll have to start eating more rabbits to counter the bad luck of the year!

Luckily, there was one good thing to look forward to and that was my porcelain pots finally got painted and fired properly. I am quite happy with the way they turned out mostly, though I do wish there had been more consistency in the end results from two different glaze firings. The first one turned the porcelain slightly beige like stoneware and there was less gloss on the pot surface but the second one gave me a much more translucent effect with a slightly greenish colour like pale jade.

2011-02-11T23:40:00.000+08:00

So all the Chinese New Year hoo-ha is mostly over and I managed to go play tennis again on Wednesday, the 9th of February, and discovered that a twenty-day lay-off is not good for me. I didn't gain any weight but the lack of really active exercise didn't do my lungs any good. After the flu and lung infection, I was gasping like crazy for air! At one stage, I thought my lungs were going to fall out through my throat. The good thing is that I hadn't lost the timing on my backhand or serve, but my forehand was a different question entirely...typical of my family heritage. I had to resort to stroking the ball carefully without trying to hit a single winner off my right side. And as for my volleying and overheads, the same thing happened, too. I must be the only person at the club who runs around to hit a backhand smash!

Keong Hee Huat Chye

2011-02-03T09:48:00.000+08:00

Wishing everyone a happy Lunar New Year! I'm putting on as much of my bling-bling as I can fit around my neck and wrist as I can without looking like a demented dowager today. Not that I'm planning to put up a picture with it all, though..,maybe one of these days when I'm feeling particularly barbarious, though, because I know I look like a mad, old barbarian when I get into one of my blingy moods...Ha Ha Ha!

After some thought...

2011-01-24T23:25:00.000+08:00

I had thought of posting something on my birthday, but changed my mind as I hadn't felt that anything had changed enough for me to talk about it here, but after giving it some thought (and time), I realize that a few things are no longer the same as when I posted at the New Year. For one thing, my health isn't quite like it was last year - I seem to be falling sick with all sorts of complaints more often. It doesn't matter much to me, though. I have never enjoyed really good health or physical strength anyway. Even as a kid, I was always sickly and if I have managed to accomplish anything in my life, it has been in spite of never being strong enough or well-coordinated physically.

I guess, for me, it will always be a question of mind over matter - but only so long as I have managed to remain mentally strong or retained my belief in myself. I have always believed that whatever I could see myself doing in my mind, I could achieve in reality. Back when everyone told me I could never become a writer or support myself as one, I never lost faith in the belief that if I truly had a talent for writing, somehow I'd be able to earn a living doing it. So much for what everyone thought. I'll be celebrating my tenth anniversary as a published author, ghost writer and freelance editor in a few months' time.

2011...yeah? So what's new?

2011-01-01T18:34:00.001+08:00

Another year begins and I am determined that this year is not going to end like the last one. For starters, I am going to plan and carry out my projects much better. I suspect that the one thing which stopped me from finishing so many things in 2010 was the fact that I didn't plan my time and my schedules as well as I should have. That and probably the fact that I wanted to do too many things. This time round, I'm just going to limit myself to just a few, or at least no more than 2 different ones in each area of my life. So here goes -

1. I am going to finish the first draft of my on-going clients' books by the end of March so that I can go see their publishers and get them out of my hair before June.

2. I am going to finish the final draft of my own young adults' fantasy, get at least the first draft of the second book done and start marketing the series on the international market before December. Come what may, NO MORE LOCAL PUBLISHERS for me!

3. I am going to work at both my tennis game and my (NEW!) weight workout routine in tandem so that I can play two small, local tournaments before the end of the year.

4. Now that I have some of the basic skills, I am going to cut down on the number of plain pots I make and concentrate on producing better lidded and more highly ornamented vessels instead. As I see it, that should be the next level of skill I need to master.

5. I am going to take a proper holiday. Two weeks all BY MYSELF doing all the things I really enjoy. I might go visit the native pottery factories and learn some new ceramic decoration techniques on Koh Kret island in Thailand, just swim, sun and take it easy on some other tropical isle or something like that.

Christmas Roundup

2010-12-25T23:11:00.004+08:00

Merry Christmas and happy New Year, everybody!

It's been an interesting year, for sure. I started it off looking better than I ever did before and I'm ending it back at Square One - trying NOT to look like a pig.

I always attributed my weight problems to my inner demons but this time round, I have to admit my body has a lot to do with it. It's taken me months to find a way to keep my energy levels up while playing tennis - even after I sacrificed working out with weights. The good news is that, for about a month now, I've been able to eat properly and still play porperly, without suddenly going weak at the knees. From May to September, I had to eat a whole meal (in addition to the regular ones) just to get through a single set, let alone doing any kind of extra weight workouts. Now, I'm beginning to work out again, but with a different programme and I'm starting to feel better.

And then, there were the illnesses - from gastric problems to lingering flu, food poisoning and fever to problems with my eyes. The list just goes on and on. I often found myself getting things done on sheer will power and little else. Worst of all, was the depression. There were weeks when I just ate until I felt like vomiting, read and re-read every book I could find on my bookshelves and refused to get out of the house for any reason whatsoever.

I have never relied on medication to deal with my depression and I never will. The darn things are too expensive and I would feel as if I'd really given up for good if I did. I have always handled it by going through the worst cold turkey and then telling myself, "I refuse to look like a pig in my coffin." I know that when I say that and mean it, I'm over the hump. A big ego is a wonderful remedy for depression, I think.

But I'm not going to end the year on a sour note. I should also list all the positive things I can remember -
1. I've learnt to understand my weaknesses better and deal with them appropriately instead of just gojng into a tailspin of depression.
2. I've learnt how to eat properly to deal with my personal requirements and I'm on the way to losing weight again.
3. I'm working on two commissioned books (some extra $$$ in the bank always cheers me up) and I've finished the first book of my children's fantasy trilogy.

4. I've graduated to working regularly with porcelain clay (see picture below).

I'm sure there were other good things that happened, too, but I can't quite think of them right away. However, now that I think about it, I must confess that deep down, I never doubted that I could do any of it. I guess having to be myself by myself for so many years helps, after all.

It never gets easier...

2010-10-13T23:14:00.001+08:00

Just when I thought things might start going smoothly for a while, life decides to throw me another curveball.

Aftr all, my pottery's coming along okay nowadays and I'm having less trouble trying to throw properly fitting vessels and lids (here's another of my candy pots with a plum blossom knob on a cap) and my tennis developing nicely into the kind of smoothly attacking game I want, I woke up on Saturday morning with twinges just below my left knee. It doesn't seem to pain me much most of the time, but it does affect my ability to move to the ball and to put my weight into my service. And occasionally, when I lift my leg the wrong way (luckily I don't have to do that every time I go to the loo), it spams horribly.

I wonder what it might be. My knee was okay on Friday after I played tennis on Thursday but Saturday, it even hurt when I sat for too long. I wonder if it'll cripple me eventually but that doesn't worry me too much. No point worrying about things I don't have the money or the time to cure.

Sometimes, even I don't have the guts...

2010-10-06T00:34:00.003+08:00

Funny, but I tried on my old jeans and they're still loose even though the weighing machine says I now weigh 192 lbs. I know I haven't worked out with weights since July because I wanted to focus on my tennis and I've been going through some really bad depression with all the usual binge-eating, so I know I haven't put on any new muscle on my upper body...in fact, I know I've lost plenty of muscle above the waiste. So, I am just too ashamed to post any more of my pictures here until I can get back to my old weight at least. There are some things which I don't quite find that I have the gumption to do at the moment.

So I'm going to post some pictures of my newest pots here for the next few weeks, instead. That qualifies as good news, at least.

I tried making lidded vessels a month back, and finally got them glazed, fired and out of the kiln last week. I only wish learning to deal with my own inner demons were as easy as I'm learning pottery on the wheel. Here's one with a butterfly on the top to serve as a sort of knob or handle on the cover.

Win some, lose some...

2010-09-26T11:01:00.001+08:00

The last six weeks have been a bit of a nightmare. I had to run the club tournament - three events over three weeks - play in it, whether I was ready or not, and still get work done on my books. As a result, I put on 10 lbs of fat because I had to eat more than I liked in between training and games, just to keep my blood sugar levels up. And I barely had time to do any kind of workout either at home or at the gym.

Thankfully, I think I can see better times ahead even if I still have a lot more to do now that it's all over - just for the record, I lost 8-0 in the singles because I was so nervous, I just kept pushing the ball back into play. So much for all that training and eating. But I digress. Yesterday, I finally made some progress as a potter. After weeks and weeks of trying to throw a longer neck on my vessels, I managed to do one that survived the kiln. It's not exactly the most graceful of necks, but at least it's more than half-an-inch in height.

And my Japanese pottery teachers decided that I was good enough to handle porcelain on the wheel. I was both excited to try it out and a bit worried that I'd screw up the finer (and stickier) new clay but to my great surprise, I didn't. I managed to throw three pieces right off the bat and kept my wastage to only about five tablespoons of clay. So here are my very first porcelain pots still wet from the wheel.

I'll post some more pictures after they've been fired up the first time. I'm thinking of painting the smallest pot with underglaze flowers to see what happens. I know that the beautiful white clay shines through our class' plain single color glazes to give a sort of almost jade-like celadon effect. Beautiful but I could never stop fiddling with things...and even if I'm usually too lazy to paint on bisqueware (three coats of colour on a bone dry surface that soaks up moisture worse than a sponge!)

Phooey!

2010-08-25T13:27:00.000+08:00

Try and try and try...or in my case, train and train and train, and no matter what I do, I still can't overcome some of the things that made me a lousy tennis player 30-over years ago. Like lousy hand-eye coordination and the inability to resist temptation (well, what else should I do if someone gives me a ball that's practically sitting up and begging to be smacked like there's no tomorrow?)

Okay, I have to admit, there's been a few small positives from all that running around waving a racquet like Obi-wan's lightsaber. For starters, it helps to keep my weight down. And then there's the fact that it keeps me fit enough to do all the other naughty things I love without having to worry about 'under-performing' because I'm too fat or run out of gas too quickly. best of all, I guess, would have to be the fact that all that tennis has actually given me lots of energy to enjoy many other things which were simply too tiring to even contemplate, in the past.

Mental Baggage 1

2010-08-08T12:01:00.011+08:00

Mental baggage...*sigh*....what would I do without all the accumulated detritus of the last half-century to give me an incurably twisted insight into the things that go on around me. I try my best to let it all go and carry on with my life, but it just isn't as easy as I'd like it to be, I'm afraid.

Some days I just can't be bothered with all the bad things that have happened and then other days, I simply cannot seem to forget no matteer hw hard I try. Worst is when I carry it all on to the tennis court with me...then it really screws up the way I play.

Like last Sunday night, for example. It wasn't that I was playing all that badly - just that I wasn't playing as well as I believe i should be able to. And when that started getting to my head, I began making really stupid mistakes and for one horrible moment, I actually stopped and asked myself, "Could they have been right after all?"

Silly, I know. But I let it get to me even after all these years.

Shadow boxing 2

2010-07-15T23:28:00.001+08:00

I suffered low sugar attacks of dizziness and trembling twice at the tennis courts last Thursday and Saturday. And that, after having one packet of chicken rice at 11.30 am and another again at 3.00pm before going down to play. I even made it a point to have peanut butter sandwiches and biscuits before starting a game, but it didn't seem to have made much difference. The ironic thing is that here I am trying to lose 20 lbs of body fat so that my knees don't give up (and so I'll look good in extra-tight jeans...but that's another story...) and my body insists that I have got to eat a lot of high, unrefined carbohydrates before I can start exercising effectively (and enjoyably) to lose weight.

I thought I'd found a way to deal with the low sugar problem but it looks like I was wrong. In a way I wish I'd never tried look up 'hypoglycemia' on the internet...it's SCARY!!! So, it's back to the drawing board...or the menu in this case.

This is a prime example of what I call shadow boxing. I can deal with and fight an illness with medicine; I can overcome fat and make up for lack of sporting talent and lousy hand-eye coordination with lots of hard work, but how do I deal with a condition that can't be cured by pills or injections, practise or sheer force of will? It's like fighting shadows in my own mind.

They say I'm sombong...(I)

2010-07-11T13:21:00.001+08:00

"sombong" - adj. proud, bumptious, arrogant, conceited (Bahasa Melayu)

Recently, I was accused of being sombong by some people I know, and it got me wondering if that were really true. I know I set the bar really high for myself. Just a few examples for starters -

I don't ask other people to treat me. Not even as a joke. I was brought up old-fashioned, and I consider it really low class to make others feel obligated to spend any money on me just because I made them feel guilty. On the other hand, I enjoy treating people who I like or sympathise with, to a meal or a drink.

I would never give someone a "missed call' and expect them to call me back so that I can save some money on my handphone bill. My reasoning is simple - why should I expect others to spend their money just because I want to talk to them? If I really wanted to talk to someone, I would spend my own money.

I wouldn't joke about other people's financial matters, love lives or familial relations. It's none of my business and I don't feel that insinuating that someone should 'remember' me in his or her will or take me out to dinner just because they've got a new boyfriend or girlfriend, is the kind of low class thing I should be doing.

So do things like that make me sombong? I don't have a problem if other people want to do things like that. I do, however, get very offended when they expect me to behave like them. People always say, "I have the right to...." but they never mention or conveniently forget that I also have the right NOT to.

Now that I have thought about it, I feel I couldn't really care less whether people regard me as being sombong. After all, I have my standards to maintain, and if the rest of the world feels the need to 'get a little extra' by indulging in that kind of behaviour, I am certainly not going to lower myself and join in.

Hhhmmm...so may I am very sombong, after all.

Old trees have deep roots...

2010-07-10T12:10:00.000+08:00

I know I should be happy that today, I can actually plan my strategy before I even serve or receive a single ball in a singles game of tennis (how often I manage to carry out that strategy is another question) but it's still pretty hard to make myself believe that I am no longer the one-shot guy who lost every game 6-0. I once mentioned in my blog that I shouldn't apologize or feel embarassed if I played a good shot and won a point...well, I still do. Quite simply, it's still hard for me not to feel inferior to everybody else on the court whenever I play.

I never had the coordination, strength, stamina, ability to think when playing or any form of innate understanding of the game, no matter how much I loved playing tennis. I hit the occasional nice shot and won a point or two but that was always it, as far as I was concerned. It's taken me 37 years to reach a point where all the hours of pounding a ball against a wall finally begin to make sense and I can see the court in terms of angles and the game as an exercise in tactical shot-making. And I still feel that I don't deserve to win a point, let alone a whole game or set, simply because I am finding it so hard to let go of the fact that I was so lousy in the past.

I am not going to blame anyone for not explaining or teaching me what to do - let's be honest, that's something you're either born with or you've got to figure out for yourself - nor am I going to bemoan the fact that too many of my peers still see me as that same "let's lose it all with style" kind of player. Bitter experience has made me the kind of person who isn't going to depend on anybody but myself for emotional support of any kind. Quite simply, I have to be strong for me because nobody else is going to be.

I know someday I'll reach a point where I'm simply not strong enough to cope any more, but I've already made plans for that contingency and I'll make darn sure I inconvenience as few people as possible, when it happens.

Making some necessary cuts

2010-07-07T14:23:00.000+08:00

I've had to make some hard decisions recently, especially when it comes to my body. I know I've always said that my first priority was to make sure that I went to my grave looking like a man and not a pig. But I'm also quite competitive and I do want to play tennis well enough to erase some old, painful and rather humiliating memories...and that's what it boils down to essentially. Do I go on trying to put on more and more muscle? As I get older, my knees are going to find it harder to handle the extra weight. Muscle is about 18 per cent heavier than fat, after all.

Or do I just concentrate on losing more weight to improve my game and simply train to that end? That could be rather dangerous, as I might end up losing overall muscle mass and density while gaining fat. Let's face it. At 51, no matter how much I train (and I can't train as hard as I would like to nowadays) the best I could ever get as a tennis player is as an A-grade club player. I'm a D-player at the moment and I'm playing three days a week because it takes me at least a full rest day to recover from playing three sets each time.

I decided to try my best to train with light weights so I wouldn't lose too much muscle while still burning fat and maintaining muscle tone while I worked on the most basic things about playing tennis - which I never learned when I was young. I never had the talent to play naturally or the brains to use strategy. Even today, my playing strategy comes down to the two simple things I can remember to do - hit away from my opponents and don't hit the ball to the same place twice. More than that, I can't do because my brain just refuses to function when I see the ball coming my way.

That's why I didn't want to take any pictures of myself until today, when I'd had a chance to try out the new programme and see how my body would take it - and what I'd look like after six weeks.

Shadow boxing 1

2010-05-26T13:12:00.001+08:00

Down with a cold again this week...I hope it's just my annual downtime so that I won't have to worry about getting sick again the rest of this year. I haven't even been able to stay on my feet long the last couple of days, and I've lost my appetite completely (that's not such a bad thing when I'm trying to lose excess avoirdupois). Seems like it's always one step forward forward, two steps back sometimes. That's why I've entitled this week's post 'shadow boxing'. It's as if I'm fighting not just my own body but the shadows in my own mind as well so much of the time, sometimes.

The worst of it is when I'm trying to play good tennis - I don't have good co-ordination, courtcraft, power, speed or stamina on the court. All I've got is what I can do to the best of my ability and to do that, I've got to be always ferociously focused on each and every point I play. I manage to do it for a few points and then it all falls apart...I forget to keep my eye on the ball, my blood sugar falls so low that everything seems to be going round and round or I try to do too much with the ball or I just go back to playing reactively instead of attacking with what little I can muster. But tennis is the only game I've ever been able to play and enjoy, so I don't give up on it - or myself. Even when sometimes, I feel as if the way I play tennis is typical of the rest of my life.

Fighting each day as it comes...

2010-05-16T12:00:00.000+08:00

It's been a very busy six weeks for me, what with getting my clients home in spite of the mess that our local airlines made of their schedules, trying to get my life back together in order and just trying to find the time for a proper holiday by myself (no luck there yet...) - it's been a daily battle just trying to get all the little things done. And to top things off, my children's book got rejected by my publisher so now I am going to have to loook for another publisher.

There have been times when I have been tempted to simply throw up my hands and give up but being the kind of obssessive-compulsive guy that I am, it's pretty hard to simply walk away from anything. I just have to keep pushing and fighting until I get things done. It doesn't get easier as I get older - or busier - because I am also trying to master the potter's wheel, play better tennis, work out regularly with weights and keep my weight down. With all the hooha of the last few weeks, I've been lucky to squeeze in a couple of days at the tennis court, a few days here and there at the gym and with some real effort, once a week at pottery class. Once or twice, I've had to ty and get so many things done that my blood sugar fell until I nearly blacked out.

But I keep going on, if for no other reason than the simple fact that I don't expect to be around very long in this world and while I still am, I intend to get as much out of whatever little time I have left. Now that's one advantage of being typically Chinese and thrifty. We don't waste a thing!

I Don't Understand...(One)

2010-04-11T22:20:00.002+08:00

There are many things in life I have a hard time understanding but one of the most common and recurrent has got to be why people can spend so much time and expand so much effort to look good with their clothes on...and then not care one bit about what they look like when their clothes come off! And I'm not saying that just because I work out regularly - I'm speaking from experience since I used to weigh 110 kg before I decided enough was enough.

I've seen people (who shall remain nameless) spend hours getting their hair and clothes perfect before going to the beach...and then when they stand on the sand in front of God and everyone in nothing more than their very revealing swimsuits, it's like they suddenly morphed into what could very easily be mistaken for beached whales! Do they really imagine that flab looks good...or is it that the glare from the sun makes it impossible for people to see every extra roll of fat on their bodies?

PS
I finally got the chance to cut my hair. Now I don't look like a crazy accountant any more! YAY!

Two lessons from real life.

2010-04-09T01:11:00.001+08:00

I think one of the most important things about being creative is experimenting and learning. I don't think anyone can be really creative without trying out new things and learning - especially from the mistakes. Take this pot - it was accidentally broken by a lady with fat, itchy fingers who picked it up when it was in the bisque stage and still fragile and then promptly broke off one corner. I thought of throwing it away but I am Chinese and I DON'T LIKE WASTING anything...so I decided to use it for an experiment instead. And voila! while the pot still looked weird with one edge missing, I learned that slathering on a thick second layer of glaze gave me the glossy effect I'd been trying to get for months. See what I mean about trying and learning?

And then, occasionally, being good at what you do sometimes has unforeseen consequences. The last few months have been so hectic with editing work that I haven't had a haircut since before Chinese New Year in February. So I've had to comb my hair a little more and occasionally I've had to put a little gunk to make my lovely silver locks stay in place. Anyone who knows me also knows I don't like gunk in my hair because it makes my scalp itch like crazy...and it makes me look like this!

Without false modesty or too much ego...

2010-03-31T23:56:00.001+08:00

I think the hardest part of putting 'soul' into any form of creative expression is experiencing life first. I don't think I'm being either a hypocrite or facetious when I say that without the experience of at least one of life's emotional extremes like loving and then losing a loved one or being penniless and not knowing where your next meal is coming from, for example - a person who tries to express himself or herself creatively never progresses beyond being an artisan at best.

I don't believe that being naturally gifted or a genius has anything to do with it, after all, most great artists whatever their chosen medium of expression, are not lauded so much for their technical perfection as they are for what resonates in the minds and hearts of those who perceive their work. Think of Gauguin or Sylvia Plath, for example. Tortured souls and far from technically perfect at what they did but they were great because what they produced touched something deep in the souls of those who encountered their works.

Maybe this is why I sometimes fear when people say that they want their children to become great artists of some kind. If I ever had children of my own, I think the best thing I could ever wish for them would be a nice, normal life without being driven by any kind of great creative urge or talent because I think that a talent big enough will sooner or later find its own way of encountering emotional extremes - and I could not possibly bring myself to wish such harrowing experiences for any child.

New and Improved!

2010-03-28T22:24:00.001+08:00

So here I am with the very first page of my new and improved blog!

I think I want to use this blog to record my thoughts on what it means (and takes) to do the things I do, like fighting fat and flab, writing books, making pots, playing tennis and all the things I plan to do, in order to grow old as disgracefully as I can. I don't think I could ever grow old gracefully if it means going quietly into the long night...not that I believe or think of death as 'eternal rest' anyway. I have always regarded dying as being the greatest adventure I could ever have!

So just for the record, I am going to list a few things here.

My weight when I first started training with weights - 200 lbs

My waist measurement then - 39 inches

My chest measurement then - 39 inches

My weight today - 188 lbs

My waist measurement today - 36 inches

My chest measurement today - 42 inches

The published books I have written or co-written and got published so far are -

Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew, The Life and Times of A Fire Dragon

- a biography of the late Penang philanthropist co-written with Dato' Loh Cheng Yean and Raymond Flower; it was translated into Chinese and the first edition sold out in four months.

Car, Castello & Quill

- a biography of my long time friend, literary mentor and co-author, Raymond Flower.

And here is a little progression of my improving skills at pottery:

All done by hand.

My best wheel-thrown piece after five months of pottery classes.

Trying something a bit different after six months.

My first cylindrical doughnut vase, completed 2 months ago!